The Cradle King (43 page)

The marriage took place in the chapel at Whitehall with the Archbishop officiating on 14 February 1613, in English this time – the groom ‘had learned as much as concerned his part reasonable perfectly’. The service was preceded by a firework display and a mock battle of ‘a Christian navy opposed against the Turks’ staged on the Thames at a cost of over £6,000 – John Chamberlain remained unimpressed, feeling it fell short ‘of that show and brags had been made of it’, and it had caused the loss of two eyes and three hands among the participants. Chamberlain also opined that the groom was ‘much too young and small-timbered’ to be a husband, a fear that also seems to have gripped the King. The morning after the wedding, James went to visit ‘these young turtles that were coupled on St Valentine’s Day, and did strictly examine him whether he were his true son-in-law’; Frederick ‘sufficiently assured’ the King that the marriage had indeed been consummated.
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A week of the usual masques and dancing, revels, triumphs, banquets, running at the ring and processions by torchlight followed, and the expenses mounted. James for once made an economy – by dismissing Frederick’s household, which the bride took ‘very grievously and to heart; but necessity hath no law’. The couple left Whitehall on 10 April 1613, somewhat diminished in splendour, as Chamberlain had predicted: ‘I am of opinion her train will not be so great by many degress as was expected; for we devise all the means we can to cut off expense, and not without cause, being come
ad fundum,
and to the very lees of our best liquor!’
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James took leave of his daughter at Rochester on 14 April, making Frederick promise that in future Elizabeth would be given precedence over himself, his mother and all other German princes. From Canterbury, Elizabeth wrote to James: ‘I shall, perhaps, never see again the flower of princes, the king of fathers, the best and most amiable father that the sun will ever see. But the very humble respect and devotion with which I shall ceaselessly honour him, your majesty can never efface from the memory of her, who awaits in this place a favourable wind.’
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Sailing from Margate, they arrived at Heidelberg in June. ‘Her Highness’s physicians do report that in all appearance she should be with child,’ wrote Trumbull, the British resident ambassador in Brussels. ‘I pray God they prove true prophets and that with the New Year her Highness may be the joyful mother of a fair Prince.’
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Right on schedule, Elizabeth gave birth to what she termed ‘a black baby’, Frederick Henry, on 2 January 1614, James’s first grandchild.
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After the fiasco of 1610’s Great Contract, nothing was less appealing to James than the thought of another Parliament. While some of his counsellors urged that it was the only way that the King could raise funds, there was a strong faction that opposed it vehemently. To call a parliament, advised Northampton, was to call together his enemies, ‘for such were those of the Parliament, that would do nothing which he desired, as he had seen by experience’. James later took him aside to reproach him for speaking ‘with much freedom’, while admitting he spoke ‘with as much truth’.
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Sir Francis Bacon was among the most vocal of those in favour of a parliament. Keen to take his revenge on his first cousin Salisbury, whom he thought had sabotaged his early career, Bacon blamed the shambles of the last Parliament utterly on the late Lord Treasurer. He provided James with a ‘memorial’ of some points which he thought good to be touched upon during the King’s speech to the two Houses. James should explain the financial needs of the crown, and pledge that he would ‘not speak to them in the language of an accountant, nor of a merchant, nor of a tyrant’ – indeed, that he meant to ‘set down a course to myself’ whereby there would be ‘no more arrears but competent store for that which concerneth privy service’. It was an utterly blatant rebuttal of Salisbury’s Great Contract policy four years earlier.
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Parliament was summoned to meet in April 1614. Sir Henry Neville, advising from the perspective of one who had espoused the popular cause four years earlier, drew up a list of concessions with which James might placate his Parliament. Only a week before the opening of Parliament, the empty post of Secretary was suddenly filled by Sir Ralph Winwood, previously James’s ambassador to the Low Countries. It should have been a canny choice since Winwood was a known and vocal ally of the Puritans in the Privy Council. In practice, he was a parliamentary novice and his appointment – made over many competitors – could only bring resentment.

James addressed both Houses on 5 April 1614. He divided his speech into three concerns: soul, person and Exchequer. Under ‘soul’, he dealt with religion, pointing out the care which he had taken to marry Elizabeth to Frederick ‘because he was of the same religion’; if he had not been so concerned, then he could have married her to a greater prince. He desired that the laws against recusants should be observed and enforced by judges who were currently neglecting their duties – perhaps because some were papists themselves, or had wives or kin or friends who were papists; laws not executed, he pointed out, ‘were like a dead body’. As a result, ‘the papists each day grew in numbers’, and he told them ‘with much pain’ that ‘it had come to his knowledge that there was a province in the kingdom with so many Catholics that the governor had no authority and could not find help from anybody to enforce the laws against papists’. He paused for a moment to let this sink in. Implementation of existing laws was important because he had no desire to create new laws and be bloody in persecuting; it was also necessary to be considerate with papists ‘on account of the respect due to the princes’ who belonged to the Catholic Church. As for ‘person’, James was concerned about the succession. God ‘by his secret judgement’ had taken Prince Henry, ‘which he understood to mean that God was punishing his faults and sins’ or indeed ‘that He was chastising those of his people’. But while God had taken away, God had given him a grandson – Elizabeth and Frederick’s son – who could if necessary (‘may God not permit it’) succeed him if Charles were to die – hoping ‘that all would appreciate his good judgement in marrying his daughter to the Palatinate’.

Which brought him neatly to ‘Exchequer’. James was now in debt, he claimed, because of the expenditure of the marriage and of recent colonial interventions in Ireland, and so he had to ask (but not press) for their help. ‘I will not now deal with you by way of a bargain as at our last meeting but will tell you what I will grant you, the which things shall be such fruits as appertain unto a just prince. For if I should, like a merchant, treat with you, where a contract begins affection ceases, and I hold the affections of my subjects to be the best purchase. I covet nothing from you but so much out of your loves as you will grant me regarding necessity of my people; for I leave the quantity of your gift to yourselves.’ If he received this, ‘he would be contented and would act as the most religious and scrupulous king England ever had.’ He wanted to show his affection to his kingdom by giving, but ‘it was also just’ that his vassals should behave ‘as was customary towards kings’.
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James addressed both Houses again in the Banqueting House on 9 April with a very similar speech. This time he offered a list of eleven acts containing some concessions to the Commons’ grievances. ‘I deliver them unto you as I told you, supported between two sisters, desiring you will accept of my love in them more than of the things themselves. As the former parliament began with love, so may I desire this may do and not to have it interrupted as before. There is a holy emulation to be had between the King and his people, whether the King love the people or the people love the king better; and as you know we love God the best the more we receive from Him so it makes our obedience the greater for the like is amongst ourselves.’
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If he truly expected a Parliament of Love (and it must be doubted that he did), then James was to be disappointed. From the outset there were charges that the Crown had tampered with elections: James was forced to rebut these in his first speech to Parliament, but nevertheless one councillor was expelled and even the right to attend of his key adviser Sir Francis Bacon was challenged. By the beginning of May, matters were not progressing as they should: the Commons were insisting on dealing with their grievances, including impositions, before getting to their ‘gift’ to the King. James elected to speak to the Lower House on the 4th to reinforce his ‘Parliament of Love’ idea, and employing his familiar ‘king as physician’ rhetoric. Eventually, he arrived at impositions. When he came to the Crown, he said, he changed no counsellor or judge that Elizabeth had appointed. So it was Elizabeth’s counsellors who persuaded him ‘that impositions were a great flower of his prerogative’, and Elizabeth’s judges – and a judgement in the Exchequer Court – that persuaded him of their lawfulness. ‘He would die a hundred deaths before he would infringe his prerogative.’ The speech did not help matters.

Soon, certain members were speaking out quite harshly. On 21 May, Sir Edwin Sandys spoke of how Henri IV of France had used impositions, and Thomas Wentworth pointed out that Henri had been ‘killed like a calf’, a remark that prompted a formal complaint from the French ambassador, and led to Wentworth’s examination by the Privy Council.
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On 3 June John Hoskins made an impassioned speech. This Parliament was called a Parliament of Love, but the arguments made, he pointed out, were of fear. We are no base people, and we know the King to be royal and gracious: was it then a suitable way to obtain a supply to say the Commons would not be heard on the subject of impositions? The King must be moved to suppress ‘this haven of impositions’ and better care must be taken in the sale of his lands. As it was, ‘we have nothing but ill examples of all riot and dissoluteness’. Hoskins left no doubt as to the origin of this riot and dissoluteness. Wise princes sent strangers (foreigners) away, he claimed: Canute sent back all the Danes when he decided to stay in England; and ‘the Palsgrave had lately dismissed all the English that were about the Lady Elizabeth’. And then he made a reference to the Sicilian Vespers, which one parliamentary journalist ‘understood not’. But for those who knew their history, the reference was clear. In 1282, at the signal of the bells ringing for vespers, the Sicilians had massacred all the French on the island. James understood this as a threat on the lives of his Scottish entourage, and had Hoskins imprisoned for several months.
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Rumours spread suggesting that the Commons had been the subject of some derogatory remarks during the Lords’ debate on the matter. It was said that Bishop Neile had urged the Lords not to give their consent on the conference, since the Lower House should not be meddling in such an affair, and that in doing so they were attacking the Crown; a conference would only subject the Lords to talk of mutiny and sedition.
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As the Commons decided to take the matter directly to the King, news came that the Lords had rejected their invitation to a conference. It was decided not to proceed in any other business until the affair was sorted. A committee was appointed, and debate continued – until another interruption arrived in the form of a letter from the King.

James wanted to know what they meant by ‘forbearance of proceeding in all other business’ – surely he, not they, called an end to proceedings? The Commons managed to assuage the King on this point, but on Friday 3 June he let it be known that unless they dealt with his supply immediately, he would dissolve Parliament on the following Thursday.
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James asked his preferred counsellors for advice: one faction begged him only to prorogue the Parliament; their opponents encouraged him towards dissolution. When the Commons prevaricated, James raised the stakes, informing them on Monday that since he ‘did not intend to infringe the liberties of the House so as to set us a fixed time for any one certain business’, that he was now resolved ‘to dissolve it tomorrow’.
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The Parliament, known to posterity as the Addled Parliament, was dissolved on Tuesday 7 June 1614, after only two months, without passing a single measure.

James seemed to have felt himself more than ever alone after the fiasco of the Addled Parliament. Over the last year, he had been secretly treating with the French King Louis XIII, in a bid to marry Charles to Louis’s sister Christiana. But now he needed a stronger ally. In 1614, a new Spanish ambassador, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, had arrived in London. James was quickly taken with the ambassador’s urbane charms: Sarmiento, it was said, was ‘full of conceits, and would speak false Latin on purpose in his merry fits to please the King; telling the King plainly that he spoke Latin like a pedant, but I speak it like a gentleman’. The Venetian ambassador reported that Sarmiento won James’s admiration on hunting trips, by matching the King’s delight in ‘putting his hands in the blood of bucks and stags’. Sarmiento filled James’s ears with tales of Spanish power and wealth and the security that friendship between the two nations would guarantee. He complimented him by relaying King Philip’s private wish that he and James might live as brothers.
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Now, in early June, Sarmiento was the trusted ally to whom James, miserably unhappy by the fate of the Parliament, naturally turned. Could he rely on Philip of Spain as a friend, he asked, if he cut off relations with the Commons. Sarmiento was diplomatically vague, but made enough assurance that he ‘helped greatly to induce the King to break with the Puritans, contrary to the advice which he received from many’. James had a request: that the ambassador tell King Philip the story of the Addled Parliament as it actually was – that the Commons was a body with no head, that its members voted without rule or order, drowned out in confused cries and shouting. He could not believe that Elizabeth had tolerated it, but what could he do? It was already there when he came to England, and he was not able to do without it. As his mood turned gloomy, recalling what had gone before, James was reminded by Sarmiento that it lay in the King’s power to call and dissolve Parliament at his will. This cheered James, who exclaimed that yes, without his consent the Acts of his Commons were nothing.
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And if King Philip was his friend, then perhaps he could fulfil his dream, to have his son and heir Charles marry Philip’s daughter, the Infanta Maria of Spain.